South Korean guitarist, composer, and DJ, JIJI Guitar. Photo: Auckland Philharmonia
It started with rock 'n' roll.
Korean guitarist Jiji's first experiences with the guitar were through watching her father play in a rock band.
The Korean-born, US-based guitarist is in New Zealand to play Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez with the Auckland Philharmonia, one of the most beloved works in the classical guitar repertoire.
But had things been different Jiji might have been a rock star.
When her parents took her to a music shop when she was a child, she asked if she could play the drums, like they did in her favourite band, Deep Purple.
But the drums are not a good option if you live in an apartment in Seoul.
"Can I have an electric guitar?" the eight-year-old Jiji asked.
"No", said her parents, but she could have an acoustic one.
"How about you have that for a year, and then we'll buy you an electric one?" Which never happened.
What happened instead was that Jiji fell in love with the acoustic guitar, especially when that acoustic guitar was played by the Japanese classical artist Kaori Muraji.
She remembers watching a video of Muraji meeting the Spanish composer Rodrigo, ahead of a performance of his famous Concerto de Aranjuez.
"It was such an inspiring thing and it was like, I want to become like her, she is so cool, and I just sort of stuck with it."
However, Jiji never completely turned away from rock (former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore remains a hero) and when she moved to Boston in her late teens, she even briefly played in a punk band.
And these days she does have an electric guitar, to which she brings a classical sensibility, performing music written specially for her, some of it by her partner, Gulli Bjornsson.
